What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

There were additional shots to those that were originally planned because of the location that was used and the time of day that was decided. This meant loud non-diegetic noises that were heard in the background, which was written in the storyboard, couldn’t be used because of the time of night we had recorded the footage and also filming in the private estate.

One problem that occurred with the equipment was that despite having a tripod, the size of the room that we used was a limited size; causing difficulty with spacing – meaning it was tight when varying the shot lengths. Meaning they didn’t match up to the ones that were mentioned in the storyboard. To get over this issue, closer shots were recorded in certain parts of the bedroom scene.

The only problem that occurred with the mise-en-scene, costumes and props, was the corkboard which was filled with the fake pictures of victims. The board clearly appeared to be artificial and there was limited usage for items to make up the board and other props. There were also problems when it came to the lighting side of the process. Because of the shots being in different parts of the bedroom, different shadows were casted onto the footage causing different levels of lighting. This is clearly evident in the footage by each shot being in different keys of light.

The final

film differs from what was originally planned as shots have been taken out which appeared in the storyboard and some had even been filmed but was then decided when the sequence was watched back that certain shots were not needed to complete the opening. Plus, there was an issue with the length and timing of the Thriller opening. It originally went over 2 minutes and was nearly going into its third minute. The product seemed to drag and lose its thrill, which wasn’t the intention that was wanted at all. To resolve the issue, eliminating the unneeded shots was relevant.

I didn’t have any problems with the sound because of there being no dialogue incorporated in the opening. The only sound which is heard is when the actor breathes heavily at the start. When it came to the editing process, it became difficult with the breathing suddenly stopping when the next shot had begun. To fix this problem, a special effect called fading was used to make the two shots together flow by them combining with each other.

First shot Fading effect Second shot

There were no problems with regards to the actor, Max Knowles, except the times where he was available to film for the group. But overall, Max worked well on set and followed directions clearly. There were only a couple of mistakes through him either laughing or not realising the film had began to record, but showed good characterisation of an assassinator.

With the shots that had been chosen, I decided to add music when the actor who plays Brad looks into the mirror. The reason for this was because at this point, the pace of the sequence slows down and becomes more of a calmer atmosphere. To create this mood, I wanted a piece of music that sounded unpleasant but must have violins as the dominant instrument because of the results that were received when participants from the target audience was asked what instrument would be best for a Thriller. My aim was to make the audience still feel uncomfortable despite the setting being calm visually. The picture below shows the starting point of when the music began.

There were two particular shots which caused problems and had to be recorded several times, shooting from the actor then panning left to the television and panning right with the actor then tilting up whilst we walked up the stairs. The main reason why these were shot more than the others was because of the camera not remaining steady when the movement began.

Special effects were included in the sequence. Different use of transactions, fading and zooming in at slow motion, was used to make the opening flow and slow down the pace as an overall thing. Fading was used at the beginning of the opening, showing a slow start, with then the pace gradually quickening up, the whole thing slowed back down by the use of slow motion being shown at the end of it. Not only was the product edited through special effects but also incorporated with titles, all being used by the software adobe after effects. For example, the title ‘Target’ was made by the ‘shatterize’ effect, also known as the pixel polly plugin to the title. It also needed a metallic background so that it made the texture seemed more realistic. This wasn’t always easy to do as it took a couple attempts to get the credits right. The first time, the text was too large to fully fit onto the screen so it needed to be edited it to make the font size smaller.

Overall, I thought that using Premiere was easy to pick up with regards to adding the shots into the sequence and being able to cut them shorter or separating one shot into two parts. Another point which the software is easy to use is the fact that it’s easy to rearrange the shots. However, I noticed that if you didn’t shift the over shots over and just placed a shot over the top of them; it would remove the certain part of footage that was covered up. Premiere was difficult when the credits were involved as for an

example, there was difficulty getting the ‘name credits’ to crawl across on the left side of the screen. But it was soon resolved by making the font size smaller.